Wallachia

This evening’s Dracula Live entry is a big one. Van Helsing enumerates a number of the count’s powers and what little of his backstory Stoker ever reveals. A few notes:

1. We know from the books Stoker had access to that he knew little about the historical figure from whom he gets his name. Dracula expert Elizabeth Miller has more.
2. His mention of Scholomance comes from Emily Gerard’s Transylvanian Suoerstitions. In folklore it was a school of sorcery presided over by the devil himself.
3. Van Helsing’s friend Arminius is a version of real-life Ármin Vámbéry, an expert on Eastern Europe and friend of Stoker whom he consulted in writing the novel.